Saturday, June 7, 2014

Feeling a draft: Recapping Day 2

Jake Reed worked out of the bullpen for the Oregon
Ducks this year, but he was a starter for two years first.

A rather odd second day of the draft for the Twins as they went really heavy on college relief pitchers.

They did this in 2012, when they loaded up on the likes of Luke Bard (supplemental round), Mason Melotakis (second round), J.T Chargois (second round), Zach Jones (fourth round), Tyler Duffey (fifth round) ... Power arms, all of them, and used out of the bullpen by their college coaches.

Left-hander Sam Clay reacts
after getting the final out of the ACC
championship game for Georgia Tech.

The Twins tried some of these guys as starters, and the results have been mixed at best. Bard and Chargois have barely pitched at all because of injuries, and Jones had surgery this winter for a shoulder aneurysm. Melotakis, after spending most of 2013 in the Cedar Rapids rotation, has been mainly relieving in Fort Myers. Duffey has pushed his way up to Double A and has been strictly a starter to date this year.

Between Thursday's second round and Friday's picks, the Twins took five college bullpen arms in a row.

I expect they'll try some of those guys as starters. Curtiss was probably relieving for the Longhorns in part this year because he's still recovering from significant surgeries as a sophomore (both Tommy John and the removal of a rib). Reed started for two years for Oregon State become taking the closers job as a junior.

The Twins took three more college pitchers, all of whom were starters, in the seventh, eighth and ninth rounds. So far they've taken just two position players, one of them in the first round.

This was seen as a pitching-heavy draft, and the Twins sure went heavy on the pitchers.

Today the draft goes though the final 20 rounds. The Twins might sign about half those picks, and the odds are that they'll be "organization guys" — players they sign so that they have enough bodies to stock the lineups in the entry-level leagues.